Politicizing Care in Austere Times: Disability, Survival and Renewed Forms of Activism

• In Event: 168 - Section on Disability and Society Paper Session. Conceptual and Practical Challenges across Disabilities

Abstract

The wake of the global recession has brought about a renewal of neoliberal ideologies in North America and the United Kingdom, and politically justified a suite of austerity measures targeting health and social spending that has disproportionate consequences for disabled and chronically ill people. At the same time, there is a glorified policy trend of promoting accessibility as a business-smart strategy that signifies our arrival to a fully inclusive, ‘progressive’ social milieu. These trends are intricately tied together, with the latter trend termed “disability incorporated” by Robert McRuer (2014). This paper argues that this restructuring has been an impetus for new forms of disability activism and care politics in Ontario as disabled people fight to maintain services necessary for survival. At the same time the larger socio-economic forces work to undermine formalized equity-seeking disability organizations, pushing activism outside of this sector. The paper presents examples of this practical resistance in Ontario, namely politicized notions of self-care, the Ontario Direct Funding program, and collective forms of care. While these examples of reformulating care can be used as practical modes of resistance, they can all be co-opted and restructured to suit a neoliberal ideology and must therefore be continually interrogated and politicized.

Authors

• Mary Jean Hande, University of Toronto

• Christine Kelly, University of Ottawa